Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from any of the Intellectual Properties represented in this document.

AN: A different take on the whole "Betrayal" thing.

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Traitor

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Harry Potter angrily paced back and forth in Death's office, trying to both get his thoughts under control and ignore just how weird it was knowing that Death had an office.

"You might want to take a seat, Harry; we have a lot to go over." The anthropomorphic manifestation of death suggested.

Harry threw himself into the almost jarringly comfortable chair in front of her desk with a cry of "fuck!"

"I know it must have come as a shock to you, Harry, but you need to think about how you're going to go about this once I send you back."

"I just can't believe she would do something like that, I trusted her with my very existence!"

Death sighed in part exasperation and part sympathy. "It's always hard to learn that one of your most loved people is secretly plotting to have you killed."

"But as far back as second year!"

"How do you think she learned to brew Polyjuice Potion so easily?" Death asked rhetorically.

Harry sat dumbfounded for a few long minutes, chin on chest, before he looked back up at Death. "She was never my friend, was she?"

Death shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not, Harry. Hermione only ever had one friend, and that was knowledge. She was completely lost by the time she turned ten."

"What about the Basilisk?"

"Do you really believe that a child would be able to figure something out that the greatest minds in the magical world were stumped by? No, Dumbledore knew what it was, her handlers knew what it was, and the protections in the castle, and Hogwarts himself, kept the students from dying. Myrtle was only killed in that bathroom because Tom was a founder's heir; there was a glitch in the wards that allowed him a little more leeway than anyone else."

"The time turner?"

"She brokered a deal with the Unspeakables, hairs and finger nail clippings from you for their experimentation in exchange for research journals and the time-turner." Death got an amused look on her face. "She didn't even understand what most of those journals said until years later."

"What about the Tri-wizard tournament?"

"You were a huge publicity coup for the Ministry of Magic, she was to do everything in her power in order to keep you in the tournament and alive."

Harry buried his head in his hands and groaned in despair. "Dumbledore's Army?"

"Harry." Death chided him. "She chose the Hog's Head, where it would be much easier to overhear anything you talked about, and there just happens to be a ministry informant getting a drink at the same time as your meeting?" She shook her head. "No, it was all a plot from the beginning."

"Dolohov hitting her with the cutting curse?"

Death snorted. "As if being silenced would really take away enough power from that spell to not slice her in half immediately. No, he never intended to kill her."

"So when did she go over to Voldemort?"

"When she realized that he would be an unending source of knowledge on the Dark Arts. He was immortal, for all intents and purposes, and she was, at her very core, an information addict. Ultimately, feeding her addiction was more important than any ties she may have had to the people around her."

"And sixth year she didn't even try and hide her obstructionism anymore, did she?" Harry asked himself, not really expecting an answer. "All this time, it really looked like Albus was the one manipulating my destiny, steering me towards some nebulous "greater good"."

"Albus Dumbledore is the only reason you lived to see your twelfth birthday." Death interjected placidly. "You never would have survived your first year without the protections given to you by living with your relatives."

"But he was the one that lured Voldemort into the castle in the first place!"

Death grunted in annoyance at her charge. "The stone was never meant to be a lure, it was meant to be safeguarded and nothing more. Hogwarts is an amazing castle. Quirrell was an amazing actor, as well. Albus never suspected a thing, ultimately his nurturing nature and concern for Quirrell's supposed trauma that he suffered while out of country made him overlook some glaringly obvious signs."

Harry looked confused for a moment. "Then how did we make it through the gauntlet?"

Death gave him a patronizing look. "Hogwarts is an amazing castle." She repeated stoically.

Harry sighed. "I would have thought Voldemort taking some of my blood for the ritual in fourth year would have invalidated the protection?"

"Oh, no." Death responded with a smile. "He could touch you, but it pained him greatly to do so. The only thing that ritual accomplished was that it stopped him from turning to ash with skin to skin contact. He was in just as much pain as you, whenever you two were in close proximity, he'd just had decades of mental conditioning in not showing the strain. If the body restoration ritual had worked around the protections, he wouldn't have waited until you turned seventeen to attack you at home."

Harry sighed in exhaustion. "So, back to do it all over again, eh?"

Death sent him a penetrating stare. "With some appropriate alterations, I hope?"

Harry chuckled morosely. "Yea, I'm thinking Hufflepuff."

"That would be a good move for you." Death said, much to his surprise. "The vast majority of public servants and law enforcement officials in Britain are Hufflepuff alumni, and they take care of their own. Go with that."


AN: A bit of a reaction to all of the Hermione-sue fics swimming around FFN lately. There's been an explosion of them over the last year and a half, and I'm finding myself actually liking Ginny more, even though she is basically a blank slate canonically.